10 Years of Aho - a coming of age & the end of our Pēpi Collection

I struggled to write the post. The knowledge that I needed to write, but never quite finding the momentum to overcome the question of what to say.

I find it's hard to show up in a space when you're wrestling with who you are amongst a change, a question of what Aho is becoming, and how I relate to it. This pakihi and kaupapa that has held us thus far, is asking that we grow, evolve and change again.

This year marks 10 years of Aho, a decade!

Our mataamua (eldest) turns 10 too, and when I look back at where we began — and who I was when this all began — it's hard to believe.

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Ten years ago I was 25, hāpu, and uncompromising in my determination to shape a holistically kaupapa Māori way of doing business and creating products.

Late 2015 I was traipsing around factories across India, punctuating the trip with morning sickness while doggedly optimistic that we would find a process, a partner, and a shared philosophy of mahi that could enable us to create our pēpi wraps. A determination to create a product that embodied whakapapa from seed and farming process, to manufacturing and aesthetic.

Perhaps by the will of the atua, or the sheer force of hope, we found a partner in India who completely aligned. Who challenged us to think even bigger — from using refuse cotton for our packaging, to contributing funds from our premiums toward reforestation and education initiatives. Ten years later, we still work together, and I'm still inspired by their courage, their kaupapa, their mahi.

Our babies — and many of yours — have been wrapped in the beautiful organic, fair trade threads we sourced on that fateful trip. Your purchase contributing to a kaupapa whose impact reverberates throughout communities.

In July, 2016 I birthed our first pēpi, Aho reached the market, and life as I knew it shifted on its axis. It birthed a Māmā, and shook up everything I thought I knew about myself. We wrapped our pēpi tightly in the wraps I had imagined for her and grew into parents. Then we had another pēpi.

One of the dreams of Aho, alongside creating an ethical and kaupapa-led business, was to shape a life in which I could have the flexibility to be at home with my tamariki for their preschool years. A dream that — even on those tough days in the trenches of monotonous mātua life, or late-night mahi sessions — I look back upon with deep gratitude. The privilege pf presence isn't something I take lightly or for granted.

In late 2019 I travelled back to India to document on film the whakapapa of our products — from the cotton farms and their whānau, to the printing and stitching and packaging. The travel was invigorating, my first real taste of being 'a business owner', and a sharp contrast to my life at home defined by nappies, naptimes, and the joyful but relentless call of 'Māmā!'.

And now it's 2026. I'm nearly 36, and our third, our pōtiki is nearly 5.

Aho has grown, evolved, pivoted, created, reimagined and tutu'd. We've grown from Pēpi wraps to clothing, homewares, fabrics, window treatments, wooden products, ceramics, decals and more.

When I look around at the landscape we're operating in now — economically, politically, digitally — it is barely recognisable as the same terrain we started in.

My mantra for many of our products has been 'I just wish that this existed.' And now, as I look around at a proliferation of new pakihi and many similar products that didn't exist ten years ago, I'm stoked. And on some fronts, I think: 'our work here is done'.

It feels a little scary to let go of what we've known over the last ten years. But also timely.

My own pēpi have long grown past the pēpi years, and the market has grown to meet us. And I — ten years on — am ready for a new creative challenge.

The thrill of seeing our pēpi wraps out in the wild will always remain, and I shall forever be grateful for the pakihi they allowed me to build and the dreams I got to pursue.

So, after much thought — with gratitude and readiness — we're sunsetting our Aho Pēpi wraps. Once they're gone, we won't be restocking these beauties.

What will take their place? What will Aho be without its pēpi?

As you might imagine... there are already projects simmering.

Glimpses of it here and there - our ceramic oko collection laying the foundations for some of  what comes next.

Textiles for home and commercial spaces are in slow and thoughtful development

Beautiful textured panels for interior fit outs and bespoke projects.

Eventually, lighting.

We're pivoting toward more permanent rather than seasonal design pieces, expanding into both residential and commercial spaces and creating taonga that you can live with and love everyday across the seasons of life.